


cigarettes

by merriell



Series: antarlina (e) [2]
Category: Original Work
Genre: M/M, Phone Calls & Telephones, Tense Phone Calls Hours
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-24
Updated: 2019-07-24
Packaged: 2020-07-12 14:29:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,111
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19947697
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriell/pseuds/merriell
Summary: 2020. Giri received a phone call for someone who never called him back.





	cigarettes

**Author's Note:**

  * A translation of [Rokok](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19093192) by [merriell](https://archiveofourown.org/users/merriell/pseuds/merriell). 



**SEMARANG**

His room always give out the scent of being unlived years after he moved back to Semarang. It was heavy of his consequences: the family picture pulled down from its throne, leaving a rectangle marks in its leave, the color of the wall brighter than the wall around it with the paint fading from dust and sun damage; the house with barely any sound in it, and of course, how his father’s gaze went through him instead of on him, like he was looking at the wall behind him, even when they were talking to each other.

They didn’t talk much, these days, nothing past Lawang Sewu business and household chores. Giri felt like he should be grateful, as he had no interest in mending their relationship. Sometimes, though, the silence just felt like abuse, just in different forms. Giri felt like he was being blamed on. He had not been at home when his mothr died, after all.

He sighed heavily as he finished tidying up the trail of living left by his cousin’s friends. Glasses scattered on the table, out of place pillows, mattresses that was pulled out of the storage. His house that had not welcomed any guest for a long time, a few days ago had been the roof over the heads belonging to young adults that now had already when home to Jakarta with wounds all over their bodies.

He was missing the crowd that came with them, _The Gang_ , they dubbed themselves, limited social circle with a bubble of their world, carried everywhere. He felt _jealous_. 

It wasn’t like he had no friends. He had friends. Kinan still messaged him sometime, and he still went out with his childhood friends. But sometimes, he missed Jakarta, the glamorous neon lights, the nights he spent in his friends’ room. Ami’s friends had preserved that relic of high school. Giri, on the other hand, had failed miserably.

And that one person…

He pushed closed the door to his room behind him. On the door, that was made out of an old tree—a past relic that stayed around, segregating him from the outside world—he always hung his dark wash denim jacket, too expensive for him to buy by himself, the goodbye present from his two high school friends when he decided to skip prom, graduation, and all that fucking bullshit to go back to Semarang. Usually. He lent that jacket to Angkasa earlier as he had to go back home on a train instead of Eluding so that the teleportation would not disturb the recovery of his wounds. 

“I don’t need this…” he had refused, when Giri first put it on his shoulders.

Giri had insisted. Looking at him from a few steps back, though, had sent him down the memory lane.

“This reek of cigarettes,” Aksa had mused a few seconds later. 

He had forgotten how much Aksa looked like his brother. His reaction had been the same, even, as the last time he threw that jacket to a shivering Antariksa, on the edge of Mulya Hotel’s swimming pool at night.

Anta, who was wearing a thin white shirt, had left his black blazer on the room they had booked that night. From where he was smoking, Giri frowned when he realized that his scrawny friend was rubbing his arms, from his wrist to the underside of his arm, trying to keep himself warm. Though _friend_ was not really what he wanted to describe themselves as.

At once, he threw the denim jacket to Anta’s lap. “Wear it,” he said, more of a command than anything else.

Kinan had left them to greet the friends he met at the buffet, probably completely forgetting them, or doing it _on purpose_ , because he was Kinan and he _knew_ exactly what was going on. Anta looked surprised before he inserted his limbs inside the jacket. He sniffed at the collar, and retorted, with a quiet voice, almost unheard of under the wind.

“This reeks of cigarettes, Gir,” he said. “Smells like you."

The memory felt like a punch on his face.

It’s been four years after he left Jakarta.

It’s been four years after the last time he met Antariksa.

* * *

Giri was smoking, half-asleep, half-reading a book of old runes, when Kanggani appeared without warning on the edge of his bed. He lifted his head at once. His burning cigarette, more ashes than unburnt, didn’t even shake.

He was so used with Kanggani’s sudden appearances. She did it a lot, always without warning, as one wishes. The girl-shaped demon’s presence was actually the entire house, filling it with her magic, could even solidify in two places at home without even trying. He had learned to act like she was always _there_ whenever he turned. Giri tried to say that normal people couldn’t handle this, and she should stop and warn people before appearing. But, of course, Kanggani only listened to his father, and his father never listened to Giri.

“There’s a call,” Kanggani said, her thumb gesturing behind her, where Giri’s door faced the living room.

Giri’s gaze returned ot his book. “Pick it up,” he said, disinterested. No one ever called him here.

“I have.”

“For Dad?” he asked, knowing that his father had went to Lawang Sewu before the sun was even above their heads, like he always does every morning.

Kanggani raised a brow. Lately, after Ami’s visit, she had learned the gesture from Daniel who loved displaying the same expression. She had grown the most fond of him out of Ami’s little friends. He brought her snacks and talked to her, told her stories about magical creatures that he worked with, when Aksa was recovering and Ami was at the hospital for her broken arm. Kama had been her second, but that was because she could scare him easily every time. Aksa had been asleep a lot, but if he hadn’t, Kanggani would probably grew to love him too. She was just that kind of demon.

“Why would I talk to you if it’s for him?” Kanggani asked back.

Giri closed his book after marking it. “Who is it?”

“Antariksa Syailendra.”

His ashes fell to his lap. It barely had any heat, but he flinched and brushed it away. “Where’s the—“

Kanggani snapped her finger, summoning the wireless phone in her hand. She gived it to Giri who stumbled when receiving it. Although, as he pressed his ear on the receiver, he found that he was at loss of words. Slightly, he heard the sound of breathing on the other line.

Then, he waited.

Silence answered him.

“Hello?” he acquiesced, at the end.

For a moment, he thought that it had been disconnected. He almost pulled the receiver away when that familiar voice slithered into his ear. “Girindra?” His hand froze. He swallowed the lump in his throat, but that only pushed anger and disappointment up his oesophagus. 

“Ta,” he said. He wanted to say something else, but it would only be bile.

“I heard that my brother was a bother to you.”

One sentence and he was thrust back to that night. The smell of wine in their breaths, the dim light that hurted their eyes as they lay half-awake on a bed softer than anything Giri ever slept on. The nights after, he thought about how nothing would happen if Kinan had stayed and not ran away as soon as his sister called him.

“It’s okay. My cousin is my responsibility,” he answered. His hold around the plastic receiver tightened. On the edge of his sight, he saw Kanggani pressed on the other side of the phone after changing her form to a young woman that was too tall to be human. “Why call only to say that?"

There was a bitter language under the question: _why call now when you didn_ _’_ _t before?_

“I want to return your jacket,” Anta stated shortly. Anta was a man of few words, his emotions clumsy and lacking, like he was catching up on a language he wasn’t privy to. He seemed like he was forever stuck in his head. “Your address is the same as before, right?”

Giri opened his mouth. This could be asked to Aksa without calling him. He wanted to point that out, but decided not to. “Yes.”

These sentences made him feel younger than he was. Throwing him back to Jakarta. When was the last time he met Kinan in person? His message came from social media, nowadays, as he was busy with building his career. He hadn’t even talked to Theo for months, but it was better than his relationship with Anta. They used to be _best friends_ , growing even closer than Kinan and he. 

There came days when he thought, he could go back to Jakarta, Elude there, spent a few nights. But for what? There was no Anta. There wasn't even Kinan, as he lived in Canggu permanently these days. Even Theo spent most of his time changing countries due to work.

There was no Jakarta without them. There was no Giri on Jakarta without the two of them.

“Aksa can return it on his own,” he found the sentence slurring out of his mouth before he could stop it. Facepalming, he regretted letting himself say it.

There was a pregnant pause before Anta answered, “My brother is busy right now, adjusting with his new job. He’s not quite well-mannered in this department.”

_Neither are you_ , he wanted to say. He nodded before remembering that Anta could not see it from the other line. Anta said that as if he _had_ manners. Kinan had always been the nicest of their group, with Giri and Theo rivalling when it came to being assholes, dating left and right, got into fights, smoked weed, participated in drinking games, wrecked parties; Anta’s bastardry was of a different breed, the type to say something rude, missed things, didn’t call back, too focused on himself. He could even be an asshole to _girls_ when he so wished (and when he had no school work to worry about).

They would not even know each other if circumstances didn’t arise. Their meeting had been a coincidence. When he first _saw_ Antariksa Syailendra and not sweep over him disinterestedly before going back to Kinan, when it turned into friendship, inviting him inside the world of the firstborn son of a technomancy dynasty, sheltered and privileged, using sharp words to protect himself. The brothers had been similar in that department.

Giri was going to say something when it stopped him: the sound of sharp inhale, before the words: “It still reeks of your cigarettes.”

Not just _cigarettes,_ like Aksa had said it. _Your_ cigarettes.

The receiver almost slid down his hand. Giri swallowed. One sentence and the rage he had planted so dearly over the years disappeared, just like that. He didn’t understand why Antariksa had that effect on him. How unfair it was to be the only one who _cared_. One sentence and the life he had left in Jakarta, the one he pushed inside the deepest locker in his brain and not looked over, it forced itself out, possessing his body like a vengeful spirit.

It whispered, _I’m still here_ , but it might as well be, _you’re still in love with him, even all this time._

He had divided his life into two parts: the Jakarta’s Giri, and the Semarang’s Giri. Two people with contrasting responsibilities. Giri shook his head, kicking the Jakarta’s Giri out of his brain. Regardless of how much he wanted to be that boy again, he could not do it anymore. What Anta had done to him these four years was a nail in its coffin.

So, he pressed his lips together and answered, “I’ve changed my cigarettes.”

“Oh.”

“Anything else?”

“…No. I’ll send it as soon as possible.”

“Okay. Thank you.”

“Okay. Well… goodbye, Gir.”

“Yes.”

Anta hung up first. Giri took a deep breath before he put the receiver away. Besides him, Kanggani gave him a fierce frown, unhappy with what she was seeing.

“You _suck_ ,” said the woman-shaped demon, before she took back the receiver and disappeared. She left Giri by himself in the room.

Giri scoffed and shook his head. His cigarette was burned to its filter. He reached for the pack he put on his window, feeling the cold plastic under his fingers. His smile bloomed at the brand. He had been so fond, so comfortable with the first brand he tried on with Kinan that he didn’t bother ever changing it, even seven years later.

But the one who _left_ didn’t need to know that.


End file.
